


anthing (everything)

by lochTenderness (theseourbodies)



Series: what you stand to gain [1]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Blood, Demon Iwaizumi Hajime, Loneliness, Lonely people doing stupid things, Offerings, Rituals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-03
Updated: 2021-02-03
Packaged: 2021-03-14 10:48:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,474
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29169846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theseourbodies/pseuds/lochTenderness
Summary: Oikawa Tooru sells his soul.(Demon Hajime accepts a deal.)
Relationships: Iwaizumi Hajime & Oikawa Tooru
Series: what you stand to gain [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2141379
Comments: 2
Kudos: 4





	anthing (everything)

**Author's Note:**

> **Additional/Expanded Warnings:** Minor descriptions of **ritual-related bleeding** from cut on Oikawa's palm made by a pair of cuticle scissors. 
> 
> prequel story to [everything (anything)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29056440)

Oikawa Tooru is  _ stuck. _ He’s lonely, and bored, and that’s apparently all it takes to lead him to a certain book in a certain store in a certain bad part of the city. But that’s not  the what starts him down this path. 

He used to think that he’d give anything,  _ anything  _ to be able to play volleyball again; now he thinks he’d give anything just to be himself again, carefree and incautious.  _ Fun.  _ He really would give anything to be fun again, he thinks, to make someone laugh for real. The new captain from the club has been on him again about coming back to the team, and Tooru’s running out of ways to put him off; if Matsukawa stops him outside his classroom again, Tooru might just have to tell him the truth—which would probably ruin the cautious, playful friendship he’d managed to build up the other boy. 

The truth is that Tooru would rather die, rather ruin his one unscarred knee, than play manager- kun for a team that should have been his all along. His new life on the sidelines hasn’t made Tooru any easier—not easier on himself and not an easier person to get to know. It’s too bad, really. Matsukawa’s started bringing around his recently-promoted vice captain, and when the three of them are half-joking around about recruiting Tooru they all almost seem like friends.

But Tooru’s never really been good at connecting deeply with other people. When he had had a team to rely on, it hadn’t seemed to matter that much, but now? Almost-friends, friendly acquaintances don't cut it for him anymore. So, when he stumbles on that dusty book in a certain, dusty curiosities shop, he can't help himself. He really lets himself believe the promises made in the introduction when he skims it.  _ Companionship. Wish fulfillment _ . Anything he’s ever wanted, with no harm to anyone but himself. Tooru likes the sound of that. 

The nice old lady behind the counter barely blinks when he brings her his purchase. He packs the book away in his bag and takes the last train home. 

☽✶☾

Tooru’s always been a good student; he’s a fast reader, a faster study. It takes him a week to get through the entire book carefully, and then another week for the book to collect a thin layer of dust while Tooru spends his nights on his back in bed, mindlessly setting a ball up over his head. 

_ Can’t live forever,  _ he reminds himself.  _ Can’t change the flow of time, past events. Can’t reverse a death. Can’t see the future.  _ But even with those rules, the possibilities were.... Not endless, but they were vast, rolling out in his mind’s eye as he considers scenario after scenario.  _ Can’t create new people fully formed.  _ But Tooru doesn’t want a fully formed human he’ll be responsible for. He kind of just wants someone by his side who doesn’t want anything from him but, well— _ him.  _ He catches the ball and lowers it slowly to rest against his forehead. __ In the end, the decision is less about what he stands to gain than it is about what he can afford to lose.  __

Two weeks later, Oikawa Tooru is still so lonely he can't bear it, even after all that thinking. So, on a stereotypically cold day in October when his family is out of the house, he carefully lays out the thin pieces of wood plank he’s been steadily begging from his uncle’s carpentry business. He’d done the circle first on pieces of cardboard after carefully drawing it again and again on spare notebook paper he could burn easily. Now, he’s graduated from pencil to chalk to crisp burned lines on the easily stacked and hidden pieces of pressboard. Everything lines up perfectly. He hasn’t even said anything from the book yet, but when he sets the final board down it feels like it ought to  _ click,  _ it settles so solidly. 

It probably should have unnerved him, but Tooru’s always been a playmaker. He’s  made a decision already; there’s  no going back now. 

The ritual itself is simple without being easy. The conditions  have to be watched carefully, and there’s a timing element that has him keeping a precise eye on the seconds hand of his wristwatch. None of this had particularly phased him when he had first read the instructions; what had thrown him for almost a week had been the ingredients that that the book had required for the ritual to work. 

Blood of the summoner. Something that had harmed him. Something that had caused him joy. Blood had been easy enough to get with his little cuticle scissors, but the rest-- 

The obvious answer for something that had hurt him had been the same, now-bloody cuticle scissors, but Tooru had already decided before the metal even touched his skin. The dirty scraps of white polyester and spandex—all that was left of his first knee-brace, now destroyed by time and his own temper—sit in a tidy little pile in the circle, at a point farthest from him. Mindful of the time, Tooru waits a beat. He carefully squeezes his hand closed around his bleeding palm, collecting blood; he presses his damp palm down right into the wood at a point to his immediate right. 

Eyes on his watch, he carefully places the last piece, completing the circumscribed triangle points along the inner layer of his circle. 

_ No going back now _ , he thinks again; when his watch tells  him it’s been exactly seven minutes since he started, he quietly starts to chant. 

☽✶☾

Fifteen minutes after the final repetition leaves his mouth, Tooru is still waiting for something to happen. The silence, which had seemed humming at first, just seems regular now. Nothing happens, and nothing continues to happen until finally, Tooru has to face the crushing embarrassment of what he’s done here. The sun hasn’t even done him the courtesy of setting yet; all Tooru’s hard work from the last month sits in front of him, washed in cheerful afternoon light. He’s been waiting out those endless minutes against the wall, with his knees tucked to his chin and his fists clenching tighter and tighter. His palm stings. Humiliatingly, his eyes do, too. 

Bad enough to have done this at all. Worse than the mortification of how seriously he had been taking his own fool self was the deep and sudden sadness that it hadn’t worked even a little bit. Remotely, he’s surprised; Tooru hadn’t realized he was able to hope for something that strongly anymore. 

Tooru gives himself five minutes to feel sorry for himself; he lets the sticky tears build up and overflow,  hiccuping soft sobs into his knees. Every sound he never let himself make during the months of his first round of PT, and then after the surgery, they slip out of him steadily, but quietly, always quietly.  He‘ s not quite sure why he’s crying, even;  regardless of why, he wishes it was making him feel even a little bit better. He drags in a breath slowly when his five minutes are up, nowhere near done but unwilling to wallow any longer. And then, when he raises his head: 

There’s a man in the center of Tooru’s circle. He’s dressed simply, barefoot against the particleboard. Tooru blinks, slowly. The man only continues to watch him silently. His eyes, Tooru sees, are solid green, no iris or pupil, and no trace of white. Besides the old-fashioned clothes, it’s the only thing keeping the man from looking any different from another high school student Tooru might pass on the road. 

Tooru scrambles to his feet, the shocked gibbering in his brain finally making its way to his body and startling it into frantic motion. His wet breaths catch in his throat, trying to choke him. The man doesn’t move except to cock his dark-haired head to the side. 

“Usually, the tears come after a few more years, Summoner,” he says quietly; his voice is low, but human, except for a—a  _ fuzz  _ around the sound, like someone else is talking at the same time. Someone else or several  someones , Tooru thinks, his temple throbbing sharply. He presses his back harder against the wall, still focusing on breathing. 

“ Wh -what?” Tooru finally chokes. 

“I’m telling you, usually you don’t have regrets until after the shine of limitless power dulls,” the man—no. The demon. The demon says. 

“It isn’t limitless,” Tooru corrects without thinking. He’d been careful; he knew all the rules. 

The demon’s still expression cracks for the first time. Tooru stares as the thin mouth bends up, just exposing the tips of two sharp lower teeth, bigger than the others. “And you would know, wouldn’t you? I wondered if you would have a strong enough will to go through with it, after all that thinking.” His voice is casual; the words send a shiver down Tooru’s spine all the same. 

“You-- how did you know?” he asks, lips barely moving. The remaining rational part of his brain screams at him to stop talking, to not give this thing any more than he needs to, but—well,  it’s novel, just talking to someone so honestly, someone who seems to know more than Tooru does for once.

The demon shrugs and crosses his arms over his chest; his hands, previously shadowed by his long sleeves, are as tan as the rest of him until the second knuckle of each finger, where the skin shades to an inky black. The sharp, shiny tips of his nails are just as black and wickedly curved. Tooru presses his back harder against the wall, battling the sudden  tremble in his knees. 

“Thoughts are energy, just like anything else. You have no defenses besides your general mental strength; those thoughts escape into the universe and then: they’re anyone’s game,” the demon says casually. “And you were so focused; it was hard to ignore, even if I had wanted to.” 

Tooru physically claps a hand to his forehead, an outraged noise escaping him before he can stop it. He’s just so tired, from crying, from this whole year already. None of usual defenses are what they used to be. 

The demon blinks at him comically and then does something Tooru couldn’t have anticipated—he bursts out laughing,  _ gut laughing  _ like Tooru’s the funniest thing he’s ever seen. “Oh wow,” he wheezes, and Tooru can’t help his pout. “Oh,  _ wow,  _ this might actually be some fun, Summoner. I was worried you were one of those genius types—no fun.” 

Tooru bristles. “Absolutely not. I’m just--” he trails off. 

“Just?” asks the demon. “Ah-- hold on.” 

When Tooru glances up at him again, the demon is staring at his own foot, which has stopped at the edge of Tooru’s carefully burned-in lines like it’s pushed into a wall. He can’t quite tell where the demon is looking with those solid-colored eyes; he feels his shoulders go stiff with the sudden uncertainty. 

He had momentarily forgotten what the man in this strange ritual circle really was; worse, he had forgotten that there was point to the circle at all: to keep something contained that had no proper place in this world, something that Tooru had brought here for a reason. 

The demon, seemingly oblivious to these thoughts at least, reaches over to gently lift the last item Tooru had offered to summon him—something that had brought Tooru joy, an autograph to  _ Tooru- _ _ kun _ __ from when he was much younger. When he manages to tear his eyes away from the demon carefully handling his most secretly prized possession, Tooru realizes with a hard shiver that his old brace and the bloody handprint have completely vanished. 

“What is this?” the demon asks. If it were any other person—or any person at all—Tooru would say that his voice had softened.

“I’ll tell you, if you tell me what to call you.” 

Tooru doesn’t think he imagines the sudden chill in the air of his room at the question, but he finally leans away from the support of the wall stubbornly. If this demon is really here, it means that Tooru has really done it. There really is no going back now, and if that’s the case then Tooru needs some information that the book hadn’t provided him. 

“Tell me then,” said the demon, turning his face towards Tooru. “And just call me Hajime.” 

_ Hajime.  _ Tooru’s forehead gets warm when the name crosses his mind. “Do you know my name?” Tooru asks, instead of immediately offering his own. 

“Of course.” 

_ Of course.  _

“It’s an autograph from the first volleyball game I ever saw in person,” Tooru says, voice subdued. He doesn't want to dwell on the finality of the de—of Hajime’s voice. “Jose Blanco-san, the setter for Athletic Club San Juan.” 

“It’s precious to you.” 

Tooru’s throat goes tight. The book hadn’t said anything specific about what he was and was not allowed to offer up. That autograph  _ was  _ precious to him. He didn’t know what he would do—what  _ Hajime  _ would do—if that didn’t make it precious  _ enough.  _

Hajime is facing him directly, waiting. Tooru nods jerkily; he can’t otherwise answer. 

“I cannot return it to you,” Hajime says, almost reluctantly. Tooru just nods again, his shoulders hunched. When he glances back at Hajime, the demon’s hands are already empty. The  silly hope that had been lingering, trembling in the back of his mind, dies a small death. 

“Is it not good?” Tooru makes himself ask. 

“...it’s fine. It’s a simple thing, but that doesn’t mean it’s not worthy.” Hajime shuffles inside the circle. This time, when he moves forward, nothing stops him; he closes the gap between them as Tooru watches. Behind Hajime, when his feet both leave the boards they shiver violently and shrink before Tooru’s eyes, aging fifty years—a hundred years in an instant before shriveling finally into sawdust. Tooru swallows thickly but refuses to back away as Hajime comes near. 

As he passes the burned line of the circle, Hajime’s whole form  _ shivers.  _ When he comes back into focus, he’s dressed in a familiar uniform. His color of his eyes when he blinks them are abruptly confined to irises surrounded by whites; his pupils are a shock, even though they’re perfectly round and normal, dilating as he steps from the sunlight into Tooru’s shadowed corner. When he speaks, his voice has lost the eerie burr. 

“Well then, Oikawa Tooru—I've taken all that you offered me. You know the rules as well as I do.” Hajime grins suddenly. Tooru double takes at the change in Hajime’s serious face. “You probably know them  _ better  _ than I do, if I’m being honest. So now, I get to ask: what exactly can I offer you?”

**Author's Note:**

> hmu on the tweeter ([@theseourbodies](https://twitter.com/theseourbodies)) for more strong opinions about Oikawa sans ~~his soulmate~~ Iwaizumi


End file.
